In part one of this blog, I posed a few key questions that probed into how you feel you make a difference in the world—as desk-job heroes—even though you have a corporate role and are in no way packing up to trek into the Andes and save mountain Lions.
I loved reading the responses. Each opinion was unique, however, each had the same underlying sentiment. Not everyone can be a pioneer (due to personal circumstance, strengths and desires), but we can make a difference in the lives of those around us—following the philosophy of “every little counts”. This philosophy will most probably not lead to a revolt that will reshape the future, but we will make our presence on the earth a positive one, and leave behind children who we have passed this same philosophy onto.
So with this fresh thought in mind, what are these little things we are doing? In business motivation literature, we are taught the concept of compounding accumulation. A good example of this is compound interest. Every day, do a little bit, and gradually you will see an accumulation effect. This is not limited to business literature. It applies to many, many things—for example, health and fitness. I’m sure we would be guaranteed to find this concept in many healthy lifestyle motivational books. Eating one healthy meal doesn’t make you healthy, but do it for a while, and you’ll really see the difference.
Over the past year, I’ve had the opportunity to attend corporate charity days and events. In total. I attended 5 days, each day entailing a combination of painting, packing books, reorganizing shelves, etc. In isolation, it felt like a really small contribution. However, at the end of the year when we look back at what a massive difference it made to have had many hands working on this project, we made a humongous difference in the community. 5 short days will not take up a lot of one person’s time and isn’t substantial in the greater scheme of things, however, if you look at 50 people, each doing 5 days, that’s 250 days of difference-making potential!
And so the take-home message I leave you with from these blogs is the following; even though it may seem like you aren’t making a difference, the compound effect of that effort really does make the difference (as cheesy as it sounds).
Today’s question; what are the small things that you do to make your “compounding” hero difference?
